Today is the last dogs day. Mostly, I'm relieved, because we were able to be around for them 24-7 while my sibling traveled, and that availability ends tomorrow. They're a lot of fun when you have time to devote to them (well, let's face it, the SO had more time to devote to them than I did, but still), but I'd feel bad having dogs full-time on our schedule. Still...*pang*
*****
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karasu_hime asked "How is it after all these years, you still have so much love for Lupin_Snape? Why not go to a new fandom? Why don't you branch out in other fandoms?"
Good questions...get ready for some babble.
My only other
major fandom was
X-Files, and I was pretty much a lurker, although my love for novel-length fic was solidified there. I put my toes in the participatory waters, but there was a lot I didn't understand about fandoms then. Luckily, XF was a starter fandom for 90% of the participants, so there was a lot of understanding to go around.
I think I was so very into XF because the series was lacking for me in a lot of ways. I wanted to see Mulder and Scully happy, and, of course, they were miserable on TV. I firmly believed that they were building such a convoluted history with one another that they were ruined for other people. They'd have huge chunks of their lives they couldn't really explain to other people, kind of like soldiers who have seen combat - unless you've been there, it's very hard to understand.
Anyway, that's why I kept seeking out the fan fic. XF fandom was big on post-episode fics, which helped fill a niche in a bad episode, and it was big on longer stories that tried to tie together all the diverging plot threads that we now know Chris Carter had no intention of tying together himself. There was *need* there.
When I went looking for HP fic, the books were unfinished and I wanted to read more of the boy hero and his friends. I was jones-ing for some good fic to tide me over, and I thought HP fandom would be similar to XF. I was wrong - the early days of fandom saw a lot of bad writing and unfinished WiPs - but I was still able to ferret out some good stuff, of course. It was a long wait between GoF and OotP.
Meanwhile, I tend to compartmentalize entertainment. I can find straight-up fiction off a book shelf. What I couldn't get (or couldn't figure out how to get) was a story with some actual sex between the characters that I wanted to have sex, dangit! So, I tended to gravitate toward the R and NC17 ratings when I looked for fic. That worked out fine in XF, but in HP, I was all about the kids when I first entered fandom, and after a while, reading sex adventures with kids started to bother me.
Personally, I think 15-17 is a little young to be having sex, but stories that aged the kids up didn't always ring true to me.
Then I accepted slash into my life.
I love Snape and Lupin together because I haven't met two characters so well suited to being each others' happy endings. Writers often unconsciously create connections, themes and metaphors in their works, and I think Rowling didn't realise how well she had suited Snape and Lupin - two survivors of the first war, schoolmates, touched by darkness, lonely outsiders, half-bloods, impoverished, and Snape has practical skills that can help Lupin while Lupin has social skills that can help Snape.
Maybe if I find two other characters that I feel desperately need to be with each other, I
will go looking at another fandom. But I doubt I would ever love Snape and Lupin any less. In fact, I look for Snapes and Lupins in all the entertainment I peruse now. They've become baseline characters for me.
To go back to Karasu's other questions, I seek out fandoms when the entertainment somehow commands my dedication without fully satisfing me. I watched
Buffy the Vampire Slayer around the same time as XF, but I never went into the Buffy fandom because the show alone hit that
spot inside me that said "this is enough".
I think I've also stayed so long in HP because it's a book series. I was able to read to immerse myself in the world, learn the terminology and how it works through repetition of reading, which then gave me the confidence to eventually write in the HP world. Visual fandoms are much harder for me to become "proficient" at writing or discussing, so I'm more likely to end up lurking. Maybe now that I've had a taste of being social in a fandom, I'm less interested in going back to lurking.
And as for adding other fandoms to the one I'm in now, I love grazing in real life when it comes to food, but not with fic. I want to read everything that pertains to a subject in which I'm interested. That's why I had to compartmentalize HP by eventually finding an OTP - there was far too much to read and see and I have the kind of grab-hands that want it all, now. Only, it's unrealistic for me to even try to enjoy all of fandom, so if I can't have it all, I'll just have this little OTP piece with occasional look-sees into the wider fandom. Splitting my focus among several fandoms would send me loopy.
So, I guess if I can find a niche some day in a new fandom with a firm OTP and a canon in which I feel well-versed, I'll branch out. Until then...Snape/Lupin 4evah!
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